Tuesday, February 15, 2011

More Stuff Coming...

I have some stuff that I'll be posting up soon.  Primarily, I want to post up a tutorial on perspective, some time-lapse illustrations videos, some early concept designs of characters for my comedic action webcomic, Kung Fu Space Cowboy, and I want to post some shots of some 3D vehicle designs, which I will render them quite photorealistically and do some post-production to them.  I'm working on a lot of different projects right now, and I'll be keeping this blog very busy pretty soon.  Keep your eyes peeled for stuff coming from me.

Also, if you're into concept art, check out these series of videos on YouTube produced by an expert in the industry, Feng Zhu, who has contributed to the industry for more than 11 years, and has worked on films like Transformers, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and Tron: Legacy, and on such games as Command & Conquer III, Dead Space, and The Lord of the Rings Online.  He is the founder and director of FZD School of Design, and co-founder of Possibility Space, Inc. and Gamma Ray Studios.  In other words, he REALLY knows his stuff.  He created the first industrial design DVDs for The Gnomon Workshop, and has been teaching at his school since he founded it two years ago.  He releases free lessons and tips on some of the basics of industrial design (concept art and design for films and games) on YouTube under the channel name FDZSCHOOL, available for both his students and other YouTube watchers, and they're all just so top notch.  In these videos, Feng is casual and easy to understand and yet professional and knowledgeable.  I highly recommend them, and encourage you to subscribe to their YouTube channel.  Just thought I'd give him a shout-out.  I'm a big fan of his work, and have learned a lot from him.

I also want to mention that I will also be looking into designing a software project I've been wanting to do a long time.  I won't give it away yet, because I prefer to work in secret first and then show my progress, but it'll be a wonderful piece of software that I plan to make free and open-source.  It's a 3D graphics-related program, and I'm just working hard to get some more time and money to begin it.  But in the meantime, I'll be using this time to organize and weigh my ideas for it, and really just have arranged for it a good layout of what I want to do and how I will achieve it.  I'll keep you informed about it.

Well, thanks for reading yet another post from me.  Keep exploring!

- Brian


>>Be about others, and you will never be bored.<<

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Hi! Welcome to MMJB! (See, I've got an acronym already!)

Hi!  Welcome to my blog!  Let me introduce myself a bit.  My name is Brian Lockett, and I do computer graphics, among other things.  I'm constantly exploring something new, and love developing new interests daily.  I would love to travel Australia, Japan, Ireland, Switzerland, Alaska, and Spain someday, and live in New Zealand.  I love other things like classical movies, foods from around the world, the Universe, and all things Japan.  I love music, play some guitar and piano, and though I like practically any genre, my top favorites are classical music, rock music, jazz music and folk music.  I don't like to make definite plans, but I do like to strive for aims.  Some would call me an autodidact, but I say, no one really teaches themselves. I view that all we do is explore, explore with our own perspectives about the universe around us and share in people's explorations of it in talking, books, film, music, etc.  We're all explorers, the emotional computers built to relate to the universe around us and with each other.  Everybody is like a traveling vessel and every life an exploration.  We're like a network of emotional computers linked together by curiosity and communication--or at least, we should be.  I aim to be a better person, because I enjoy excellent character and want to showcase such character.

Now to share some of the tools I use in my production.  I use Blender 2.56a, though when I want to use an external renderer like YafaRay, I use Blender 2.49b.  Some other software I use are MyPaint, Inkscape, and Photoshop CS4, though I do use GIMP 2.6 sometimes.  I use a Wacom Intuos4 graphics tablet, though sometimes I scan pencil drawings as well.  I use an Asus notebook computer with Windows XP and an old Dell LCD monitor as a second monitor.  When I'm coding, I use Notepad++, and the programming languages I like most are Python, C/C++, VBScript and the web languages of HTML 4.01/CSS 2.1/JavaScript.  When I'm writing and organizing storyboards, I use Celtx.  My browsers of choice are Google Chrome and Firefox, though I use Chrome more.  I love to support FOSS software (that's "free and open-source software), and I would love to contribute to one soon.

I'm working on a few projects, one of them being a webcomic I'm working on.  I won't give anything away about it here, but I'll post something about it soon.  I am get very excited when it comes to being able to create things, and there's nothing more I love to do than create and share my creations.  I also love to go exploring other people's worlds and be a fan of what they may create.  I want to make stories that are very complex but held together by simple binding principles.  I love intricate artwork that creates a living breathing atmosphere, and characters that are not so predictable but feel like real individuals.  I love simplicity, as I love to simplify complexities, which I hope to do in my stories--simplify the complexities down to a defining moment that captivates the individuals reading my stuff.  I love character, and I want my work rich with character, rendered with quality.

Anyways, I wanted to keep this short, so I'll stick to doing that.  I thank you for reading this, and I hope enjoy my company!  If you're into art, too, give me a holler!  And if you like me so far, I hope you subscribe!  I hope you have a good day!  And keep exploring!

- Brian


>>Be about others, and you will never be bored.<<